Hitchens was wildly overrated as a thinker/debater

[Meow Mix]

What are you referring to when you say "PoE"?

I am most interested in seeing an attempt at refuting Craig's cosmological argument.
In a previous post I respond to you offering an argument against it, but I believe I showed why that argument is based on a misunderstanding of what Craig has argued and a misunderstanding of what he logically needs to establish for the purposes of his conclusion.

If you have other arguments you think can refute his cosmological argument I would like to see them.

If not, attempting to refute the teleological argument could be interesting.

The "PoE" is the Problem of Evil. I was just stating that if an argument was chosen that delved into that at all that it would have to consider God's character. But that is irrelevant, you have chosen the cosmological argument.

Craig's cosmological argument is presented thusly:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.
4. No scientific explanation (in terms of physical laws and initial conditions of the universe) can provide a causal account of the origin (very beginning) of the universe, since such are part of the universe.
5. Therefore, the cause must be personal (explanation is given in terms of a non-natural, personal agent).

Now, premise 1 is actually assailable, but I shall leave it alone. The real problem is with premise 2. It can be understood that by "began to exist," Craig is talking about an ontological beginning, not just a beginning of state. But this is not a claim that he's able to justify.

Rewinding the clock, the furthest back we can accurately describe the universe and what's going on with it is back to the Planck era during the Big Bang event. There are two problems with Craig's assertions and arguments there was an ontological beginning:

1. Time's arrow is defined by the entropic gradient: when we use words like "before" or "after," we're inherently referring to this gradient. However, if we're talking about a single Planck time, it isn't clear what we'd be saying if we tried to talk about "before" this because we need an entropic gradient to do this. Asking what was "before" the Planck era may well be like asking what's north of the north pole -- that is, if we're talking about time as we understand it. There is the possibility of metatime, some other gradient by which to judge time, in which case there could be something prior to the Big Bang event: for instance, in eternal inflation, the inflaton field decays asymmetrically, leading to "bubble universes," of which ours is but one (where time "begins" within it, but is at some time in metatime where there is metatime "before" it).
   
   In other words, that time as defined by the entropic gradient began is not the same thing as an ontological beginning, and Craig conflates the two. This means that premise 2 isn't justified, it's just a dismissible assumption since there are alternatives.
2. Craig often quotes a paper he does not understand by Vilenkin et al. to argue that physicists say that the universe had to have an ontological beginning. In the shortest possible terms, Craig does not understand the paper (I've read it), and Vilenkin and Guth have both objected to Craig's characterization of their work. Even aside from that still, physicists don't form a consensus that Vilenkin's ideas are correct.
   
   A longer explanation is that all Vilenkin et al. did was argue that expanding cosmological models are incomplete in null and timelike past directions, and they did this by taking an integral of the Hubble parameter over past-directed null (or timelike) geodesics. But the thing about this (and something that Guth has explicitly pointed out) is that this depends on metrics constructed from GR solutions (read: does not account for quantum gravity, because it can't) and furthermore there are countless times where our choice of metric leads to incompleteness or singularities simply because of the choice of metric.
   
   In layperson's terms, they note that because of the mathematics they chose to use, they get finite results for stuff; but that goes back to the old adage: garbage in, garbage out (not that the work they did was garbage, just trying to draw on a familiar phrase to assist understanding for any non-physics readers).
   
   Craig does not understand this, so he incorrectly asserts that Vilenkin and Guth have shown "the past must be finite."

Craig is wrong about this for the two reasons above, summarized here: a finite past defined by the entropic gradient is not the same as a finite past (period), and Craig's "evidence" for a finite past in physics stems from his failure to understand the very paper that he cites.

So, premise 2 is completely unjustified, and the rest of the cosmological argument does not follow.

 

[Meow Mix]

Just an example.
Carrol correctly pointed out that the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem only applies to cosmoligies that are classical i. e do not take quantum effects into account. So the only thing it does is to point out where quantum effects become dominant and needs to be accounted for. He also points out that singularities cannot exist in any theory that includes quantum mechanics, as quantum mechanics bars singularities in wavefunctions. Hence singularities are simply artifacts caused by not taking the fundamental quantum theory into account and is not considered physical in any sense.
Most current cosmological models include nonclassical effects in some way and hence do not have singularities. These models, both eternal and non-eternal, are perfectly consistent and do not run into the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin objections. WLC is simply wrong or lying when he says that the Borde Guth theorem implies that the universe must have had a beginning.

Vilenkin and Guth have both rejected Craig's claims about that paper (though I have not seen any comments by Gorde). That's worth noting.

 

[sayak83]

What are you referring to when you say "PoE"?

I am most interested in seeing an attempt at refuting Craig's cosmological argument.
In a previous post I respond to you offering an argument against it, but I believe I showed why that argument is based on a misunderstanding of what Craig has argued and a misunderstanding of what he logically needs to establish for the purposes of his conclusion.

If you have other arguments you think can refute his cosmological argument I would like to see them.

If not, attempting to refute the teleological argument could be interesting.

@Meow Mix
We can refute the argument that the Borde Guth theorem shows that the universe must have had a beginning. Should be up your alley.
Edit: you did so already.

 

[Rise]

1. Hitchens' argument that the Christian god depicted in the Bible is a moral monster is a good argument, because it indicates that the claim that this god is morally perfect appears to be impossible, and false.

Your are committing the logical fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.

Whether or not you can prove God is morally good or bad is not relevant to disproving Craig's claims that the scientific evidence establishes a creator being as the most likely explanation for what we see.

Your argument is also logically absurd because as a materialistic atheist (I am assuming you believe in materialism as every self identifying atheists I have seen does) you have no basis for accusing God of being immoral because no such thing as morality can logically exist in a materialistic worldview where no free will exists to make choices and no creator/designer imparted purpose to the world with an intent about how things are suppose to be.

On what basis do you claim to accuse God of being immoral? You can't as a materialistic atheist.
So any argument you try to make based on that assumption becomes invalid because your assumption is contradicted by your own belief in materialism. Morality doesn't even exist according to your worldview. Not even subjective morality. Because everything is physically deterministic without free will. You don't even have the ability to make a true subjective choice to prefer one type of morality over another under materialism. So forget any concept of objective morality with which you could accuse someone of objectively doing evil.

But, as I said, that's not even relevant. Even if we assumed your argument were valid, it still doesn't do anything to disprove arguments Craig put forth to demonstrate the existence of God as the best explanation for what the scientific evidence shows.

You are making the same error Hitchens made.

Indeed, I personally don't think I could conceive of a more evil god if I tried. Any human who did what god does in the bible would be reviled as the most infamous psychopath in human history.

Who says it's evil?
According to whose standard?
And on what basis do you claim that standard represents objective moral truth?

You can't claim to accuse God of being evil if you don't believe objective morality exists.

Your argument is invalid because you are forced to reject objective morality as a real concept if you believe in materialistic atheism.

This is a very compelling argument against the claims of Christianity that their god is good and morally perfect. It is not a mere appeal to emotion. It is not showing we're secretly angry at a god we think is real. It is a clear demonstration of an apparent contradiction.

Your argument never gets off the ground because of two critical failings:

1. You argument is self refuting. You can't argue for materialistic atheism and also try to prove materialistic atheism is true by appealing to a premise that assumes objective morality is true. It is a logical contradiction because they both can't be true. You can't have both materialistic atheism and objective morality.

Furthermore, as I outlined in a previous post in great detail: It can be logically demonstrated that if objective morality exists it can only come from a supreme creator being as part of the function of assigning purpose to his creation based on his intent for that creation. By definition there is no other means by which objective morality can be arrived at because morality involves saying how things are suppose to be, but saying how things are suppose to be requires a being with will and intent and make that decision when he creates something. Otherwise nothing is objectively suppose to be any way - it just is. And any thoughts you have about things should be are merely just your opinion or preference, and not objective statements of fact about how things were designed and intended to be.

You can't accuse God of violating the way things are suppose to be because you can't make any claim that things are suppose to be any way at all under your worldview of materialistic atheism.

2. It's the logical fallacy of irrelevant conclusion or red herring.
Even if we assumed your claims were correct, and assumed you disproved the existence of the Biblical God, that would not disprove the evidence and arguments Craig puts forth for theism vs atheism.

Of course, I could dispute your claims and argue for why your claim is wrong, but there would be no need to do so because even if we assumed your claim were true it's simply no relevant to what you are trying to dispute.

Trying to throw that into the debate either shows you don't understand the issue being debated or you are trying to distract from that and change the topic because you can't win the debate (Ie. a red herring).


Based on Craig's arguments you're still left with the conclusion that a theistic creator is the better explanation for what we see than materialistic atheism.
You haven't done anything to disprove or refute that.

So atheism is still wrong by that measure, which makes your line of argumentation irrelevant in a debate over general theism vs athesim.

2. You seem to have a cloudy idea of what atheism is. Granted, in traditional academic philosophy, atheism is defined as "the position that no gods exist." Outside of that narrow niche, however, regular people who identify as atheists almost never claim, believe, or defend such a position.

My position as an atheist is that there are no good arguments or evidence to support theistic claims, and so I don't believe them. That's it. Notice I'm making no ontological claims about whether or not a god in fact exists, nor am I saying your claims are false. I'm saying your claims fail to demonstrate they are true, and I can explain why, and so I don't believe your god claims. My position can be immediately falsified with any valid and sound argument or good evidence for a god. As far as I can tell, in the entire history of humanity, no such arguments or evidence have been produced.

Your claim is false. Craig has provided such arguments based on logic and evidence. Just because you personally choose not to believe an argument doesn't mean it has logically failed to demonstrate something is true, (or at least more likely to be true).

You haven't demonstrated any deficiencies in Craig's arguments that establish theism as the better explanation for what we see than atheism.
The cosmological, teleological, moral and proper basic belief arguments all taken together make a sound argument that theism better explains what we see and know to be true than atheism.

You yourself evidence this fact by your attempted arguments.

For instance: you obviously have a self evident belief that objective morality exists. If you didn't then you wouldn't be trying to appeal to that to accuse God of being evil.

But your materialistic atheistic worldview provides no room for the concept of objective morality that you appeal to.

So materialistic atheism by that one example alone has failed to explain an aspect of reality that you affirm to be true by your own appeal to it as truth.

If what you believe is true about objective morality then materialistic atheism has failed as a model for explaining reality and there is no option left but to abandon it as a false and failed speculative model of reality.

The only other alternative is to abandon your belief in objective morality - but then you would be denying something that is self evidentially true to you in the service of an unproven worldview (Materialism).

To abandon what you know to be true (objective morality) in order to support that which you can't prove is true (materialism) is illogical.
You would never do this if you truly went where the evidence takes you.

My only burden of proof is to explain why your arguments and evidence fail to warrant belief.

There are several problems with your statement.

1. You are engaging in the logical fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.
What you think your personal burden of proof is for what you believe is not relevant to what Hitchen's burden of proof is in the debate. You originally, falsely, tried to assert that Hitchens had no burden of proof.
He obviously does when he takes the premise in the debate that god doesn't exist, in contrast to Craig who asserts God does exist.

2. Your claim is false. The moment you try to claim that Craig's arguments for theism are false the burden falls on you to give logical reasons and evidence to prove why your claim is true that his conclusion is false or his arguments are flawed.

And if you want to positively assert that you believe materialism can better explain reality than theism then the burden also falls on you to defend the failings of materialism to explain everything we experience to be true about reality like free will and objective morality. Or the failings of materialism to explain what we see with the origin and design of the universe, in contrast with the arguments Craig puts forth about how theism better explains what we see.

And I've met that burden.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
Merely saying you've proved your argument doesn't make it true just because you assert it is.

You can not quote a single argument Craig made that you have offered a valid counter argument against.
Which you would have to do in order to meet the burden of your claim that Craig's conclusion and arguments are wrong.

I have no other burdens of proof I need to meet in order to sustain my position. I don't need to explain where the universe came from, or why there is something instead of nothing, or why we have moral intuitions. I only need to disbelieve your claims because they fail, and that makes me not a theist, i.e. an atheist. Do you understand this?

You don't understand how logic and establishing truth works.

If you make the positive claim that Craig's arguments are false, or invalid, or insufficient, then the burden falls on you to prove your claim is true that what you say about his arguments is accurate.

Otherwise his arguments stand unrefuted demonstrating that theism is a better explanation for reality than materialism (any materialist by definition is an atheist).

Additionally, if you want to positively assert that materialism better explains reality than theism, in opposition to Craig's conclusion, then the additional burden falls on you to defend why materialism can't explain free will or objective morality. Concepts that very few atheists are comfortable with denying exist in the service of affirming their worldview is true.
You also have the burden of establishing how to account for for the evidence of the universe having a beginning and the universe having design.

 

[Rise]

3. It's very curious to me that you think Craig has presented any argument for the existence of god that is valid and structure with sound premises. I completely disagree.

Your personal opinion of disagreement doesn't constitute a refuting or disproving of Craig's arguments or conclusion.

Since you claim he has not presented any argument for the existence of God that is valid or sound, the burden is on you to demonstrate with logic and evidence why any argument he made is using invalid logic or has premises that are in error.

If you cannot do that then you cannot make your claim and expect it to be taken as true.

If you want to present what you think is his best, clearest, well-evidenced argument, then I'd be happy to address it. Use a time stamp for a debate or just copy it out in a response, it's all good.

You are the one claiming Craig's arguments are false and invalid. The onus is on you to prove your claim is true that there was anything wrong with Craig's arguments by citing what specifically you think was wrong and why.

You aren't merely saying you didn't see anything in Craig's arguments that proved his claim and asking me to explain that more clearly for you. In that case it would make sense for you to ask if I could pull out a specific argument and explain why I think that proves his conclusion - but you are instead asserting that his arguments are false or invalid. Meaning you already claim to know his arguments, and know them well enough supposedly to claim they are wrong. In which case you should be the one picking out the arguments you think are wrong and then giving us reasons why you think you can claim that.

You can pick out anything Craig argued and try to give us any specific reasons why it is false or invalid logic.

4. You said, "Why [atheists] choose to reject that which is most likely true based on the evidence demands further explanation of what the real motivations are for their rejection of their creator." This appears to be a defense mechanism on your part, if we're going to be psychologizing now. The possibility that evidence does not indicate any god is perhaps not an acceptable option for you under any circumstances, and so you have to find a separate reason we don't believe?

Your argument is based on a false premise.
It is based on the false premise that we don't have reason to believe the evidence indicates theism more strongly than atheism.
You haven't proved your premise is true by refuting a single argument Craig made showing theism is a better explanation for reality than atheism.
Therefore, your argument is invalid.

My argument was based on the premise that Craig's arguments have shown that the evidence suggests theism is more likely true than atheism. Therefore, we turn to asking ourselves why the atheist denies the evidence of creation in the universe and their own self evident experience of free will and objective morality.

Since you have not attempted to refute any specific argument Craig made, you have no basis for claiming my premise is incorrect.

We are here telling you, over and over, that the evidence does NOT indicate god's existence is most likely true. We're telling you why. There is no "further explanation" needed.

You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion. Merely asserting there is no evidence doesn't disprove the evidence Craig gave.

You haven't told us anything. You have quoted no specific argument made by Craig and given no specific logical reason or piece of evidence that refutes or disproves that argument.

When confronted on the need to provide a valid counter argument to support your claim that his argument is supposedly false, all you've given us is claims that you don't have any burden of proof to provide one - which as I pointed out is false.

You have made the claim that Craig's evidence is not actually evidence. Now the onus is on you to explain why, with valid logic and/or evidence, why you think your claim is true.

We're telling you that we would freely change our mind and believe if we had sufficient evidence.

You are engaging in a fallacious appeal.
Whether or not you personally feel your have heard enough evidence to have your mind changed is not the metric but which we objectively determine whether or not evidence exists for theism vs atheism.

The objective validity of logical argumentation is the metric by which we measure what is objectively true - not your opinion of those arguments.

You have offered no logical refutation of the evidence Craig presented. Therefore the logic of his arguments objectively stands as valid and we have no reason to think his conclusion is not true.

What's interesting about what you're doing is you're basically idolizing and deifying yourself. Instead of being bound by the laws of logic in assessing what is true, you make your opinion the determiner of what is true regardless of what the logic says - effectively making yourself out to be like god, thinking yourself to be the measuring stick by which truth is determined.

I'm intellectually honest, and I'm using the same standard I use to believe everything else I think exists, and the evidence for god is not meeting that standard.

As we see above, your standard for determining what is true is what is error.

You have admitted your standard for determining what is true is not an objective analysis of which argument is most logically consistent with the evidence but simply based on your personal opinion of whether or not you feel the argument was good enough to convince you personally to change your mind.

But your ability to be convinced of an argument doesn't determine it's objective truth or logical validity. People are perfectly capable of convincing themselves to believe things in opposition to what the evidence and logic points to.

Thinking you could be immune to that behavior, and therefore thinking your opinions represent a reliable standard for measuring what is true, is perhaps the highest form of arrogance/pride possible. As it is taking upon yourself that which Biblically is said to belong only to God: Being the standard by which truth is determined.

Instead, it appears to fall in the poor evidentiary category of mythical creatures, UFOs, paranormal happenings, superstitious beliefs, and other imaginary things.

You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.
Merely asserting that the evidence for theism is poor doesn't prove it is just because you assert it is.

You have not give any logical argumentation to establish why we should think Craig's evidence is insufficient to demonstrate his claims.

And so I don't believe you.

This statement again reflects the error in the way you determine truth. Your choice to believe the conclusion of an argument is irrelevant to establishing whether or not that conclusion is logically objectively true.

You cannot claim that Craig's arguments are logically invalid or insufficient at supporting his conclusion because you have given no reasons for your claim about his arguments to be true.

Merely saying you don't find them good enough is just a statement of your opinion - not a statement of fact.

 

[Justanatheist]

I refer you to my response to that just above and invite you also to try to extract any argument Carrol made and then retell it to us and explain specifically why you think it refutes any of Craig's arguments or disproves Craig's conclusion.

You will not be able to do that.

First Premise,

Everything that begins to exist has a cause

Carol explains that modern fundamental physics does not deal with "causes" it deals with mathematical models, Craig is using an old view of physics. Carol presents models that show how a universe could exist without a cause. Show where Craig actually refutes this suggestion in the debate, Craig is out of his depth using ill defined words like cause and Carol points that out.

 

[Justanatheist]

The argument you are responding to does not require disproving all other religions in order for my argument to be valid and for my conclusion to be true.

You would not be able to demonstrate a logical requirement for me to do so for my argument to stand.

My conclusion was that you cannot take for granted that your assumption is true. Ie. You cannot assume your rejection of God is just a neutral activity on your behalf with no wrong behavior involved on your part.

My argument in support of that was the fact that there exist other alternative explanations for what you are doing, therefore you can't assume your belief about why you are doing what you are doing is the only possible conclusion.

My argument does not require proving the Bible is true because I never assert the Bible is true as the basis for my argument. It is sufficient merely to demonstrate that alternative explanations exist to show why you cannot assume your belief about what is happening can automatically be assumed to be the correct belief.

The only way you could dismiss the Bible as a possible explanation for what you are doing is if you were to be able to prove the Bible's explanation is false or prove your explanation is true. But you can't do that. Which is why you can't assume your alternative viewpoint is true.

Sorry if I did not keep to your script, I asked if you had proved that all other religious books and claims made by other religions are not true. It is clear from your reply that your answer is no.

 

[tas8831]

If what you claim were true, then it would be easy for you to extract information from that debate in order to refute Craig's arguments.

But you can't.

I did not set out to, so your accusation is unwarranted. I find it entertaining that your mere assertion that Craig is a logical superstar, etc., is to be taken at face value, no extraction of information. required. Always seems to be the case with creationist-types.

Because I watched the debate and Craig actually acquitted himself quite well. Far better than I would have expected.

Says you. Where is the extracted information to support your adulation?

I give credit to Carroll for actually trying to argue against the arguments themselves as opposed to hitchens who just ignored them.

But the problem with Carroll's arguments is that ultimately he doesn't prove or disprove anything. Basically the only take away you can get out of his argument is that there are competing theories about how the universe came into being. But, as Craig points out, eternity models aren't sufficient to logically explain what we know.

We ultimately still have to logically come away with the conclusion that a beginning point for the universe is the most plausible and likely explanation for what we see.

Sure, if one accepts the notion of the fallacy of the false dichotomy. You do you.

 

[tas8831]

Sorry if I did not keep to your script, I asked if you had proved that all other religious books and claims made by other religions are not true. It is clear from your reply that your answer is no.

Sure, but where is your extracted information to support your position? Keeping in mind that literalists and Craig acolytes need only toss out opinions and hero-worship, and voila! Case closed.

 

[tas8831]

Purely self evident truths are arrived at without any reasoning needed:

Such as:
That you exist.
That you have consciousness.
The fact that you experience time.
The fact that there is a physical reality.
The fact that logic is true.
That you have free will.
That truth exists.
That objective morality exists.

What an amazing coincidence! Those "self evident truths" just happen to coincide with your apparent beliefs!

Those are not self evident to me - well, a couple of them are, But some are silly and circular, and I am sure so great an intellect as you had to have known this, but trotted them out anyway.

You're hilarious, and your "logic" isn't. Which is why I shan't waste time on long-winded circle-talkers such as yourself.

 

[tas8831]

The "logic" is just amazing folks! A regular Aristotle in our midst!

But even that argument by you would be logically wrong - because you can’t claim God’s defined truth is not the standard by which truth is judged unless you can say either there are other gods equal to him also creating in the same way or unless you can say that there exists something above god which created him and subjected him to a higher truth.

LOL! "My God is the true God, and I know this because my God is the TRUE God, and that's that. LOGIC!!"

If God is uncreated and uncaused, and there are no others equal to him, then by definition there is no other standard by which to judge his truth of reality against. His truth becomes the very definition of truth by virtue if being the source of everything. You have no basis for claiming there exists any other truth but God’s truth when nothing above or equal to Him exists.

Isn't it curious that these self-proclaimed logic experts do perfect 10 double-flip backwards somersaults off of the Logic Train when it comes to propping up their preferred deity? This guy is all 'that is false due to logical fallacy X' all day, but then busts out the Fallacy of Begging the Question at the drop of a hat!

So pretentious...

 

[SkepticThinker]

You are engaging in a strawman fallacy because Craig's conclusion never depends on the cosmological argument by itself.

The cosmological argument is merely to establish that there was a beginning of the universe and the cause of that beginning had to be both timeless and causeless.

Yes, I realize he says that repeatedly during his speeches, but he never ever gets to demonstrating the existence of any god(s), never mind the personal god he believes in.

Even if the universe (our universe? the cosmos? He never distinguishes between the two, rather he just lumps them together) came into existence and requires a cause (which he never demonstrates either), that doesn't mean the cause is the Christian God that WLC personally believes in. The "cause" could be invisible farting pixies. There's nothing to indicate the cause has to be some intelligent entity.

As Sean Carroll points out to him in another debate, there are many different cosmological explanations in which the universe has no beginning. WLC does nothing to address them and simply brushes them off as though they don't exist.

It is the teleological argument which establishes that there must be a creator by showing design and intention behind design in the universe.

He never manages to actually demonstrate that either.

And the argument that the universe is fine tuned for life is absurd to me.

So far this gets us to the conclusion of an eternal uncaused free will being of unfathomable power who by his power and will of intention created the universe and all in it.

It doesn't though. This is just asserted but never demonstrated. Unintelligent universe farting pixies could be inserted into his equation just as easily. Or the unintelligent universe-vomiting turtle from Stephen King’s “It.”

Right there you've already narrowed down the potential deities this can describe to a considerable degree as they don't fit these attributes. Its pretty much going to come down to Abrahamic religions at that point.

Anyone can do that when they do as WLC does and just inserts his personal god into it without demonstration of said god's existence. How convenient.

But then you get to the moral arguments and self evident arguments which establish the moral character of this creator being and what his intention was for his creation.

That further narrows down the compatibility with various religious beliefs.

I find his moral arguments to be unconvincing and I don't see how it establishes anything about a being WLC cannot actually demonstrate the existence of in the first place.

Another poster aptly addressed the supposed "self evident arguments" which are merely asserted to be "self-evident" but never demonstrated as such, so I'm not going to get further into that.

You are committing the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.

That would be WLC's fallacy, actually. He does a whole lot of asserting.

Merely claiming that he has not demonstrated his conclusion is logically true, or that his argument is unsound, doesn't make it true just because you assert it is

You need to provide reasons why you think your claim is true.

Well when that's what he's actually done, I'm going to go ahead and point it out. His conclusion doesn't follow from his premises, and not only that, he can't demonstrate that his premises are true to begin with.

He can’t even demonstrate that his very first premise is true. He just declares it so.

You cannot quote a specific argument Craig has made and then expose any logical fault with it.

You can't quote any argument he has made and then give any reason why it is insufficient for his conclusion.

“Everything that begins to exist has a cause.”

When did he demonstrate that?

“The universe began to exist.”

The entire cosmos? Our local universe? Cosmologists don’t even know the actual answer to that yet, but WLC does somehow?

“Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.”

Hmm, okay. So that cause just has to be an intelligent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc., etc. creator? When did he get anywhere close to demonstrating that?

You are committing the logic fallacy of argument by assertion.

Merely claiming Craig got the science wrong doesn't make it true just because you assert it is so. You need to provide specific examples and provide reasons or evidence why you think he gets any science wrong.

He gets a ton of science wrong, which is obvious when he debates scientists like Sean Carroll. He even got Carroll’s views wrong, misquotes him out of context to make it seem he was saying something he wasn’t, and when corrected by Carroll himself, simply continues to inaccurately describe Carroll’s views! WLC is at least 20 years behind on the science he cites.

 

[Justanatheist]

Sure, but where is your extracted information to support your position? Keeping in mind that literalists and Craig acolytes need only toss out opinions and hero-worship, and voila! Case closed.

Did you notice the response they gave had absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked, like Craig it is all about sticking to the script and getting your opponent to follow you down the rabbit hole.

 

[tas8831]

Did you notice the response they gave had absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked, like Craig it is all about sticking to the script and getting your opponent to follow you down the rabbit hole.

I did. That is what they do.

 

[AlexanderG]

Your personal opinion of disagreement doesn't constitute a refuting or disproving of Craig's arguments or conclusion.

Since you claim he has not presented any argument for the existence of God that is valid or sound, the burden is on you to demonstrate with logic and evidence why any argument he made is using invalid logic or has premises that are in error.

If you cannot do that then you cannot make your claim and expect it to be taken as true.

You are the one claiming Craig's arguments are false and invalid.
Merely saying you don't find them good enough is just a statement of your opinion - not a statement of fact.

I have to thank you for obviously putting a lot of time and thought into your replies. I'll get into it a little bit, although I don't currently have time to respond to every single point. You seem to be some sort of presuppositionalist, which is fun, but you also seem to have a hard time understanding the position I'm actually holding, and the burdens of proof associated with our respective arguments.

1. I'm not claiming Craig's arguments are false, or that evidence disproves them. I'm claiming his arguments cannot be shown to be true, and that no good evidence supports them. Can you see the difference, here? In either case, I still don't accept his claims, and in the latter case I also have no burden of proof beyond describing that I personally don't accept them. This is not an "argument by assertion" fallacy. I'm simply stating that I've evaluated his arguments and I don't find them convincing, and that I'm happy to say why if anyone is interested.

2. I said I've never seen an argue put forth by Craig that is both valid and sound. The clear invitation, from me to you, is for you to list one of Craig's arguments that you feel is the strongest and we can discuss it. If you can show it is valid and sound, then I will admit I was mistaken and maybe be convinced of a god's existence. If you cannot then I will continue to hold my current opinions. Pretty clear, right?

3. I described why one of Hitchens' main arguments against god's existence is a good one: it shows that god's qualities appear to entail a logical contradiction. I never claimed that this point of Hitchens was meant to refute any of Craig's arguments, nor have I specified any of Craig's arguments by name or description in any of my posts, if I recall correctly.

4. The only standard I have by which to judge your god's character is my own moral standard. Judging god by his own standard would be unreliable and fallacious, because literally any person or being will be judged good by their own standard, no matter their moral code. If god gets to say what is right because he has the power to make us suffer, then I don't see how that's a moral scenario either. If you look at the thousands of mutually exclusive Christian denominations, it seems clear to me that people are simply grafting their personal moral preferences onto their "true interpretation" of god's word. (You can't all be right, or is god the author of confusion?) Furthermore, if I can't judge the Christian god as evil because I'm a rudderless, fallen human, then I don't see how you can judge god as good, since you're supposedly afflicted by the same innate depravity as I am along with everyone else. God could as easily be deceiving you into believing he's good, due to your flawed moral compass, as I could be falsely concluding he is evil because of my flawed moral compass. You can't have it both ways.

5. I don't care what you think I'm asserting fallaciously, because describing my opinion is not an objective truth claim. I'm talking about my response to Christian apologetics. From everything I've seen, every argument is fallacious or unsound, none of the explanations are explanatory, and the most common descriptions of the Christian god are what I would consider evil. I don't feel like relabeling evil as good because I avoid cognitive dissonance. A god that intentionally creates a universe such that he can torture nearly every sapient being eternally, with the small remainder being gaslit sycophants living our their eternal lives with Stockholm syndrome, is essentially the most evil scenario I could possibly imagine. I don't care if you think I'm merely asserting this as true, because it's just my opinion and not a claim about truth. It is why I personally have no belief in the claims of Christianity, and no interest in its god if such claims were in fact true.

P.S. Did you actually want to discuss one of Craig's arguments?

 

[Mock Turtle]

Hitchens is an absolute idiot only followed and "worshipped" by other idiots

So a defo follower then?

 

[Justanatheist]

Hitchens is an absolute idiot only followed and "worshipped" by other idiots

You do understand Hitchens is nothing he was.

What kind of an idiot uses the wrong tense when calling someone an idiot?

 

[Rise]

Craig's best argument in about the necessary being and possible worlds whence he borrows from Plantiga, he explains well in one video I've seem. He seems to think though by his tone this is the weakest argument he has, but, in fact, it's the strongest one. It's just that it's mathematical, spiritual, and logical, and combines it all, and so it seems too good to be true. He doesn't say it's weak but he doesn't emphasize on this one too much.

His most well known one is his argument from morality that God exists. Basically without God there is no objective morality. And there is objective morality hence God exists.

He does well with it.

I don't think Anslam's ontological argument is strong or effective. I am curious why you do.
I might go so far as to say I don't even think Anslam's argument is logically valid.

I know you're referencing Plantiga's argument but it's based on the same principle which is why I think it is also not effective as an argument.

It seems to assume that the greatest imaginable being has to exist.
But why should we expect someone to accept that assumption is true?
It seems to be based more on clever wordgames about "well, it's not really the greatest being you can imagine if it's not real, so therefore the greatest being you can imagine must actually be real in order to be the greatest being possible".

But that strikes me as begging the question by assuming the greatest possible being has to exist in order to prove the greatest possible being has to exist if you can imagine he exists.

People also don't seem to have any self evident belief in the idea that just because you can imagine something that it must necessarily exist. So that's why I think the argument falls flat with people even if they don't know how to refute the logical formulation of the argument itself. But I don't even think the logic holds up anyway. Which is probably why people don't seem to resonate with it because I don't think the logic is actually true.

It may be Biblically true that people have a self evident inner knowing that God exists and what His nature is, but that's not logically the same as claiming they must have a self evident inner sense that God has to be real merely because they can imagine Him to be real.

The reason the moral argument is so powerful in support of theism, in contrst with the ontological, is because everyone has a self evident inner knowing that objective morality actually exists as a real concept and isn't just an illusion - just like they have a self evident inner knowing that objective truth actually exists as a concept
People also know intuitively there are real dire consequences to themselves, their family, their society, and humanity as a whole, if they were to give people an excuse to reject objective morality as a concept.

Which is why you almost never see any well known atheists able to bring themselves to reject objective morality as a true concept that exists. And even among those few who do, they never actually live as though their belief were true - because they continue to insist on telling others what they ought to do and not do even though they have no logical grounds for doing so.

It is shocking how few atheists realize, or at least are willing to admit they realize, that their a priori commitment to materialism demands they reject objective morality if they want to be logically consistent with what they believe and not hold two contradictory opinions.

The materialistic atheist, by appealing to objective morality to try to disprove God's existence, only ends up proving they must believe in God on some intuitive level because God is logically the only source from which could flow any objective morality.

Some seem to be well aware of the contradiction but simply choose to defy logic and hold two contradictory opinions anyway - like Hitchens asserting a belief in materialism while also believing he has free will and objective morality exists. He outright admits he can't explain his belief in the fact of his own free will. But rather than acknowledge the contradiction with his materialistic worldview, he simply handwaves it away as something he just doesn't have the answer to and isn't interested in trying to explain. Well, his lack of desire to deal with the issue doesn't absolve him of the logical need to reconcile his two contradictory viewpoints with each other if he expects anyone to take his claims of truth seriously.

Why do atheists insist on believing in contradictory things that they know are in contradiction? This can only be explained in this case by a religious devotion to a belief in materialistic atheism as being true, faith in that worldview, faith so rigidly and stubbornly fixed that no evidence to the contrary is allowed to sway them. And even exposing the contradiction of their own belief system is not seen as relevant because they are people of unyielding faith in materialism - that even the laws of logic itself must bow down to the supremacy of their belief system.

 

[Link]

I've made a lot threads about it. You can check the discussions there. But it's that God can't be imagined to exist, because of his bigness/greatness/perfection can only be seen to exist, because his bigness for example proves he is the necessary being. Therefore if God is perceived, it's the real thing we are looking at.

 

[Link]

Another way to phrase it, is necessary being is a coherent concept, as such there definitely is One, and it by definition would always exist, be eternal, and hence is the Creator. You can then keep adding attributes to it. If it's existence size lacked any existence, it would cease to be necessary, and by definition there can only be one being this big.

So Tawhid in holy books is synonymous with the ontological argument.